Today's Hot Stories - May 08, 2013
10 Headlines for Today
(1) Mumbai NSUI chief suspended for ‘indecent behaviour’
(2) Stay hanging until review plea is disposed of, Bhullar’s wife asks court
(3) Imran falls from forklift at rally, injured
(4) No powers for coal regulator to determine fuel prices: GoM
(5) RBI panel favours differential tax regime for exporters
(6) Indian-American scientists help pharma cos stay ahead in export race
(7) Easy day at the office for Mumbai Indians
(8) Rahane-Dravid keep Royals’ home run going
(9) Bike racer Dinesh battling for life
(10) World Heritage Sites status sought for 6 Rajasthan forts, Himalayan Park
5 Stories for Today
(1) I&B Ministry has done little to curb paid news: parliamentary panel
(2) Stephen Hawking joins academic boycott of Israeli
(3) India's cheap food plans to prove costly for government
(4) Bank of England set to hold rates after upbeat data
(5) India story on investment is just starting out: Chidambaram
(1) I & B Ministry has done little to curb paid news: parliamentary panel
The standing committee bats for content regulation by empowered mechanism
In a comprehensive 100-page report covering issues across the print and electronic media landscape, a parliamentary standing committee has documented the trend of ‘paid news’ in its various forms and recommended content regulation by an empowered mechanism. It has also strongly criticised the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) for “failing to discharge its responsibility”.
The Standing Committee on Information Technology (IT) began examining the issue of ‘paid news’ in 2010. Three years later, it has concluded that the “dangerous trend of presenting [paid-for] information as news content” has spread at a remarkable pace in sections of the media. ‘Paid news’ has had a “serious and damaging impact” on innocent audiences; undermines democratic practices; affects markets, industry and health; is a tax fraud; and a question of ethics.
First noticed in the 2004 general elections, the practice of ‘paid news’ became more widespread in 2009. During the 2012 Gujarat elections, a Press Council of India sub-committee found 444 suspected cases of ‘paid news’, with 61 candidates admitting they had paid up. The committee said it was not merely an “election-time phenomenon”, but “everyday and prolific”, and went beyond the corruption of individual journalists.
The practice, according to the committee, assumed different forms — gifts, sponsored travels, direct or indirect payment of money, indirect blackmailing by media houses and, increasingly, award ceremonies by media houses where regular advertisers are awarded. The parliamentary panel warned that this would assume “gigantic proportions” if not tackled immediately.
In a strong indictment of the I&B Ministry, the panel said it was “disconcerting” that the Ministry had not done “anything substantial” to check the “menace” of paid news, and demanded action in the next six months.
The Ministry should take steps to ensure there was a “clear demarcation” between what constituted advertisements and what, news. While accepting that it was difficult to establish violations because of clandestine transactions, the committee urged the Ministry to put forward innovative solutions to consider and establish “circumstantial evidence”. It also recommended that a team of experts be set up to track the coverage pattern and that the regulatory body swing into action in case of any “unusualness”.
The committee also noted the “pathetic working conditions” of significant sections in the media, disapproved of the media’s tendency to “hire and fire”, and noted that the contract employment should not be used for “attraction and allurement”.
On the ‘Jindal versus Zee’ case, the committee deplored the Ministry’s “indecisiveness” and urged it to take immediate action based on the recommendations of the Inter-Ministerial Committee.
But in its most controversial remarks, the committee has dismissed self-regulation as “an eyewash”, and recommended that a statutory body such as the Media Council be set up to look at “media contents in both print and electronic media” with powers to take “strong actions”. Alternatively, the Press Council could be revamped in case of print journalism and a separate statutory body be set for the electronic media. It called for strengthening election laws and empowering the Election Commission and asked the I&B Ministry to act swiftly on issues of cross-media ownership.
Responding to the criticism, I&B Minister Manish Tewari told The Hindu: “I have not seen the report yet, but we hold the observations of the Standing Committee in high esteem. We will peruse it closely, identify what is actionable, and build a broad-based consensus to implement the actionable points.”
Source: The Hindu
(2) Stephen Hawking joins academic boycott of Israeli
World renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has decided to join the academic boycott of Israel and he won't be attending the annual conference hosted by Israeli president ShimonPeres in Jerusalem, the British paper Guardian reported on Tuesday.
Hawking had earlier agreed to participate in the conference called 'Facing Tomorrow' in June where international personalities join to discuss new ideas. Since the announcement of his participation four weeks ago, Hawking was reportedly flooded with letters and emails urging him not to go to Israel.
Although Hawking has not issued a public statement saying he will boycott the upcoming event, a statement by the British committee for the Universities of Palestine said that it was "his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there", according to Guardian. Hawking is reported to have approved of the statement.
Several public personalities in the UK have been leading a sustained campaign to promote boycott and divestment from Israeli universities and other academic entities to protest against the occupation of Palestine and treatment of Palestinians at the hands of Israelis.
Hawking had last visited Israel in 2006 at the invitation of the British Embassy there. He gave lectures in both Israeli and Palestinian universities.
After the 2009 Israeli attack on Gaza in 2009, Hawking condemned Israel strongly and publicly.
Hawking has been known to take anti-war positions in the past. In 2004, he joined an anti-Iraq war demonstration in London and addressed the demonstrators, calling the US led invasion of Iraq a 'war crime' and based on 'lies'.
Hawking suffers from a rare motor neuron disease called ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. As a result he is confined to a computer run wheel chair. He is 71 years old now and reportedly not keeping well.
Source: The Times of India
(3) India's cheap food plans to prove costly for government
India may soon pass a new law to give millions more people cheap food, fulfilling an election promise of the ruling Congress party that could cost about $23 billion a year and take a third of annual grain production.
The National Food Security Bill, which aims to feed 70 percent of the population, could widen India's already swollen budget deficit next year, increasing the risk to its coveted investment-grade status.
The ambitious bill, a priority for Congress President Sonia Gandhi, will raise India's annual food subsidy spending by 45 percent. It promises wheat and rice at a fraction of the cost to some 810 million people, expanding current handouts to roughly 318 million of India's poorest.
Critics say the food bill is little more than an attempt to help Congress, reeling from corruption scandals, win re-election in a vote expected by next May.
The government has already budgeted 900 billion rupees ($16.6 billion) for the scheme in the current fiscal year ending March 2014. If the bill is passed, it will need to come up with as much as 1.3 trillion rupees in 2014/15, adding to a total subsidy burden that already eats up about 2.4 percent of gross domestic product.
"It is very difficult to say whether the government will be able to get the Food Security Bill passed or not, but it is definitely going to further widen the budget deficit," D.H. Pai Panandiker, head of private think-tank RPG Foundation, said.
"The finance minister is already worried about the budget deficit, and it is going to add to his agony."
Reducing fuel and fertiliser subsidies would be the best way of mitigating the costs, Panandiker said. Other measures will also be needed to fund the plan, which may include spending cuts and higher taxes.
Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said in March the rollout of the new food subsidies was unlikely to happen before the middle of the current fiscal year, which started April 1, curbing the financial cost. Chidambaram aims to cut the fiscal deficit to under 4.8 percent of GDP in the current year from around 5 percent in 2012/13.
BULGING STOCKS
Feeding its poor is a matter of urgency for India, home to about 25 percent of the world's hungry poor, according to the World Food Programme, the food aid arm of the United Nations.
India is one of the world's biggest producers of rice, wheat and sugar, but it is also one of the largest consumers with a 1.2 billion population. It exports little and builds up stockpiles to cover handouts, which are now overflowing after bumper harvests, which have come close to 200 million tonnes a year of rice and wheat.
The law would have little effect on India's export volumes in a good crop year, but "in a year of shortage, there could be some impact" on international markets, a Singapore-based trader said.
The bill will give rice at 3 rupees per kg to the poorest people, less than 10 percent of current retail prices, and wheat at 2 rupees per kg.
The government estimates it would need about 61 million tonnes of grains, only 3 million tonnes than it currently makes available, to provide the extra food, hoping better distribution systems and a clamp-down on corruption will reduce wastage.
Last year only about 41.4 million tonnes was actually distributed by state governments in cheap food schemes.
The Congress party, which leads the ruling coalition, wants to pass the bill by May 10 when the parliament session ends.
But debate this week has been disrupted by opposition parties, which say the government is pushing the populist move as a smokescreen to avoid defending itself over corruption scandals.
Last week, police arrested the nephew of Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal in connection with allegations that he accepted a bribe of $160,000 to arrange the promotion of a railway official.
The government may try to pass the bill again in the parliamentary session that starts around July 23 or push it through without a vote when parliament is not sitting, using special constitutional powers. It must then win approval for the bill within six weeks of parliament's return.
Source: The Indian Express
(4) Bank of England set to hold rates after upbeat data
The Bank of England is expected this week to hold record-low interest rates and its quantitative easing cash stimulus, after encouraging British economic growth data and despite fresh moves elsewhere to loosen monetary policy, dealers said.
The nine members of the British central bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) -- which includes governor Mervyn King who steps down next month -- will cast their votes on Thursday at the conclusion of their regular two-day meeting in central London.
The BoE's key lending rate has stood at a record low level of 0.50 percent for more than four years, while it has also injected £375 billion ($582 billion, 443 billion euros) under its quantitative easing (QE) stimulus programme since March 2009.
King, who will be replaced by Canadian central bank chief Mark Carney in July after he retires from the role, has called at the previous three meetings for more emergency QE to stimulate economic growth and fend off the threat of recession.
However, recent official data showed that Britain has avoided falling into its third recession since the 2008 global financial crisis.
British gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 0.3 percent in the January-March period, rebounding from a 0.3-percent contraction in the fourth quarter of 2012, in a major boost to Prime Minister David Cameron's coalition government.
The economy -- which has been hit hard in recent times by government austerity measures and the eurozone debt crisis -- outperformed market expectations for more modest first-quarter expansion of 0.1 percent. The technical definition of a recession is two successive quarters of economic contraction.
"The odds favour the Bank of England continuing to hold off from more stimulus on Thursday," said IHS Global Insight economist Howard Archer.
"GDP growth of 0.3-percent quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter and an improved set of purchasing managers' surveys for April has eased pressure on the Bank of England for immediate further action to support the economy."
However, he cautioned that the committee could still decide to implement another tranche of QE cash, in line with recent calls by Mervyn King.
"It is by no means a nailed-on-certainty that the MPC will sit tight on Thursday, and it is far from inconceivable that they could go for a further £25 billion of QE."
Since the last BoE gathering, the British government has overhauled and extended its "funding for lending" scheme (FLS) in a bid to boost the flow of credit from banks to struggling small businesses, and thereby aid economic growth
The Bank of England and the Treasury last month revealed that the FLS will now make central bank funds available for an extra year, until January 2015.
"A resumption of quantitative easing (QE) looks unlikely this month," said Capital Economics analyst Vicky Redwood.
"The preliminary estimate of first-quarter GDP was better than expected and some MPC members will feel that they have done enough to support the economy by extending the Funding for Lending Scheme.
"Accordingly, Mervyn King looks unlikely to get his wish for more asset purchases fulfilled before he leaves at the end of June," she added.
Britain, though not a member of the eurozone, counts the single currency bloc as its main trading partner and has therefore been struck by fallout from the region's ongoing sovereign debt crisis.
Added to the picture, the European Central Bank last week trimmed its key interest rate to a record low level of 0.50 percent as it sought to boost the crisis-hit eurozone.
Also last week, the US Federal Reserve maintained its stimulative monetary policy stance. And this Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) cut rates to a record low.
"We are in era of global ultra-easy monetary policies which is unprecedented in the modern era," said VTB Capital economist Neil MacKinnon.
"However, tight fiscal policies designed to reduce government debt levels pulls in the opposite direction, as far as the impact of economic growth is concerned.
"In the UK, the economic outlook is still uncertain and requires a looser monetary policy," he added..
Source: The Economic Times
(5) India story on investment is just starting out: Chidambaram
With government liberalising FDI norms and setting up a system to speed up mega projects, finance minister P Chidambaram today said India story of investment is "just starting out". Addressing the First Business Session of ADB Annual Meeting in Greater Noida, he said many projects are
plagued by "last mile" bottlenecks in fuel supply, environment clearance, forest clearance, and land acquisition and a Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) has been set up to fast track the projects.
"We have permitted FDI in areas such as multi-brand retail, power exchanges, aviation and broadcasting," he said, adding "As I am fond of saying, India's story on investment is just starting out".
The CCI has cleared several mega major projects, including those in the oil and natural gas sectors, which were stuck due to various regulatory clearances.
Following liberalisation of the FDI policy in the aviation sector, Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia has joined hands with Tata Sons and Telestra Tradeplace to launch an airline in India.
Chidambaram, who is also chairman of the ADB Board of Governors, said the government is determined to accelerate the pace of inclusive growth, while maintaining macroeconomic stability.
"We are committed to fiscal consolidation. It will reverse the slippages that took place as a result of the stimulus packages (given in aftermath of global slowdown)," he said.
The finance minister said the fiscal deficit as a proportion of GDP would be brought down to 3 per cent by 2016-17.
"This we will achieved by a prudent combination of revenue enhancement as well as expenditure rationalisation," he said, adding India was determined to boost investment – both domestic as well as foreign.
Referring to India-ADB engagement, Chidambaram said he was pleased to note that ADB is now embarking on supporting initiatives in skills development.
Source: Hindustan Times
Disclaimer: All news stories and content sourced from freely available material on the internet. All sources are acknowledged.
(1) Mumbai NSUI chief suspended for ‘indecent behaviour’
(2) Stay hanging until review plea is disposed of, Bhullar’s wife asks court
(3) Imran falls from forklift at rally, injured
(4) No powers for coal regulator to determine fuel prices: GoM
(5) RBI panel favours differential tax regime for exporters
(6) Indian-American scientists help pharma cos stay ahead in export race
(7) Easy day at the office for Mumbai Indians
(8) Rahane-Dravid keep Royals’ home run going
(9) Bike racer Dinesh battling for life
(10) World Heritage Sites status sought for 6 Rajasthan forts, Himalayan Park
5 Stories for Today
(1) I&B Ministry has done little to curb paid news: parliamentary panel
(2) Stephen Hawking joins academic boycott of Israeli
(3) India's cheap food plans to prove costly for government
(4) Bank of England set to hold rates after upbeat data
(5) India story on investment is just starting out: Chidambaram
(1) I & B Ministry has done little to curb paid news: parliamentary panel
The standing committee bats for content regulation by empowered mechanism
In a comprehensive 100-page report covering issues across the print and electronic media landscape, a parliamentary standing committee has documented the trend of ‘paid news’ in its various forms and recommended content regulation by an empowered mechanism. It has also strongly criticised the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) for “failing to discharge its responsibility”.
The Standing Committee on Information Technology (IT) began examining the issue of ‘paid news’ in 2010. Three years later, it has concluded that the “dangerous trend of presenting [paid-for] information as news content” has spread at a remarkable pace in sections of the media. ‘Paid news’ has had a “serious and damaging impact” on innocent audiences; undermines democratic practices; affects markets, industry and health; is a tax fraud; and a question of ethics.
First noticed in the 2004 general elections, the practice of ‘paid news’ became more widespread in 2009. During the 2012 Gujarat elections, a Press Council of India sub-committee found 444 suspected cases of ‘paid news’, with 61 candidates admitting they had paid up. The committee said it was not merely an “election-time phenomenon”, but “everyday and prolific”, and went beyond the corruption of individual journalists.
The practice, according to the committee, assumed different forms — gifts, sponsored travels, direct or indirect payment of money, indirect blackmailing by media houses and, increasingly, award ceremonies by media houses where regular advertisers are awarded. The parliamentary panel warned that this would assume “gigantic proportions” if not tackled immediately.
In a strong indictment of the I&B Ministry, the panel said it was “disconcerting” that the Ministry had not done “anything substantial” to check the “menace” of paid news, and demanded action in the next six months.
The Ministry should take steps to ensure there was a “clear demarcation” between what constituted advertisements and what, news. While accepting that it was difficult to establish violations because of clandestine transactions, the committee urged the Ministry to put forward innovative solutions to consider and establish “circumstantial evidence”. It also recommended that a team of experts be set up to track the coverage pattern and that the regulatory body swing into action in case of any “unusualness”.
The committee also noted the “pathetic working conditions” of significant sections in the media, disapproved of the media’s tendency to “hire and fire”, and noted that the contract employment should not be used for “attraction and allurement”.
On the ‘Jindal versus Zee’ case, the committee deplored the Ministry’s “indecisiveness” and urged it to take immediate action based on the recommendations of the Inter-Ministerial Committee.
But in its most controversial remarks, the committee has dismissed self-regulation as “an eyewash”, and recommended that a statutory body such as the Media Council be set up to look at “media contents in both print and electronic media” with powers to take “strong actions”. Alternatively, the Press Council could be revamped in case of print journalism and a separate statutory body be set for the electronic media. It called for strengthening election laws and empowering the Election Commission and asked the I&B Ministry to act swiftly on issues of cross-media ownership.
Responding to the criticism, I&B Minister Manish Tewari told The Hindu: “I have not seen the report yet, but we hold the observations of the Standing Committee in high esteem. We will peruse it closely, identify what is actionable, and build a broad-based consensus to implement the actionable points.”
Source: The Hindu
(2) Stephen Hawking joins academic boycott of Israeli
World renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has decided to join the academic boycott of Israel and he won't be attending the annual conference hosted by Israeli president ShimonPeres in Jerusalem, the British paper Guardian reported on Tuesday.
Hawking had earlier agreed to participate in the conference called 'Facing Tomorrow' in June where international personalities join to discuss new ideas. Since the announcement of his participation four weeks ago, Hawking was reportedly flooded with letters and emails urging him not to go to Israel.
Although Hawking has not issued a public statement saying he will boycott the upcoming event, a statement by the British committee for the Universities of Palestine said that it was "his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there", according to Guardian. Hawking is reported to have approved of the statement.
Several public personalities in the UK have been leading a sustained campaign to promote boycott and divestment from Israeli universities and other academic entities to protest against the occupation of Palestine and treatment of Palestinians at the hands of Israelis.
Hawking had last visited Israel in 2006 at the invitation of the British Embassy there. He gave lectures in both Israeli and Palestinian universities.
After the 2009 Israeli attack on Gaza in 2009, Hawking condemned Israel strongly and publicly.
Hawking has been known to take anti-war positions in the past. In 2004, he joined an anti-Iraq war demonstration in London and addressed the demonstrators, calling the US led invasion of Iraq a 'war crime' and based on 'lies'.
Hawking suffers from a rare motor neuron disease called ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. As a result he is confined to a computer run wheel chair. He is 71 years old now and reportedly not keeping well.
Source: The Times of India
(3) India's cheap food plans to prove costly for government
India may soon pass a new law to give millions more people cheap food, fulfilling an election promise of the ruling Congress party that could cost about $23 billion a year and take a third of annual grain production.
The National Food Security Bill, which aims to feed 70 percent of the population, could widen India's already swollen budget deficit next year, increasing the risk to its coveted investment-grade status.
The ambitious bill, a priority for Congress President Sonia Gandhi, will raise India's annual food subsidy spending by 45 percent. It promises wheat and rice at a fraction of the cost to some 810 million people, expanding current handouts to roughly 318 million of India's poorest.
Critics say the food bill is little more than an attempt to help Congress, reeling from corruption scandals, win re-election in a vote expected by next May.
The government has already budgeted 900 billion rupees ($16.6 billion) for the scheme in the current fiscal year ending March 2014. If the bill is passed, it will need to come up with as much as 1.3 trillion rupees in 2014/15, adding to a total subsidy burden that already eats up about 2.4 percent of gross domestic product.
"It is very difficult to say whether the government will be able to get the Food Security Bill passed or not, but it is definitely going to further widen the budget deficit," D.H. Pai Panandiker, head of private think-tank RPG Foundation, said.
"The finance minister is already worried about the budget deficit, and it is going to add to his agony."
Reducing fuel and fertiliser subsidies would be the best way of mitigating the costs, Panandiker said. Other measures will also be needed to fund the plan, which may include spending cuts and higher taxes.
Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said in March the rollout of the new food subsidies was unlikely to happen before the middle of the current fiscal year, which started April 1, curbing the financial cost. Chidambaram aims to cut the fiscal deficit to under 4.8 percent of GDP in the current year from around 5 percent in 2012/13.
BULGING STOCKS
Feeding its poor is a matter of urgency for India, home to about 25 percent of the world's hungry poor, according to the World Food Programme, the food aid arm of the United Nations.
India is one of the world's biggest producers of rice, wheat and sugar, but it is also one of the largest consumers with a 1.2 billion population. It exports little and builds up stockpiles to cover handouts, which are now overflowing after bumper harvests, which have come close to 200 million tonnes a year of rice and wheat.
The law would have little effect on India's export volumes in a good crop year, but "in a year of shortage, there could be some impact" on international markets, a Singapore-based trader said.
The bill will give rice at 3 rupees per kg to the poorest people, less than 10 percent of current retail prices, and wheat at 2 rupees per kg.
The government estimates it would need about 61 million tonnes of grains, only 3 million tonnes than it currently makes available, to provide the extra food, hoping better distribution systems and a clamp-down on corruption will reduce wastage.
Last year only about 41.4 million tonnes was actually distributed by state governments in cheap food schemes.
The Congress party, which leads the ruling coalition, wants to pass the bill by May 10 when the parliament session ends.
But debate this week has been disrupted by opposition parties, which say the government is pushing the populist move as a smokescreen to avoid defending itself over corruption scandals.
Last week, police arrested the nephew of Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal in connection with allegations that he accepted a bribe of $160,000 to arrange the promotion of a railway official.
The government may try to pass the bill again in the parliamentary session that starts around July 23 or push it through without a vote when parliament is not sitting, using special constitutional powers. It must then win approval for the bill within six weeks of parliament's return.
Source: The Indian Express
(4) Bank of England set to hold rates after upbeat data
The Bank of England is expected this week to hold record-low interest rates and its quantitative easing cash stimulus, after encouraging British economic growth data and despite fresh moves elsewhere to loosen monetary policy, dealers said.
The nine members of the British central bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) -- which includes governor Mervyn King who steps down next month -- will cast their votes on Thursday at the conclusion of their regular two-day meeting in central London.
The BoE's key lending rate has stood at a record low level of 0.50 percent for more than four years, while it has also injected £375 billion ($582 billion, 443 billion euros) under its quantitative easing (QE) stimulus programme since March 2009.
King, who will be replaced by Canadian central bank chief Mark Carney in July after he retires from the role, has called at the previous three meetings for more emergency QE to stimulate economic growth and fend off the threat of recession.
However, recent official data showed that Britain has avoided falling into its third recession since the 2008 global financial crisis.
British gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 0.3 percent in the January-March period, rebounding from a 0.3-percent contraction in the fourth quarter of 2012, in a major boost to Prime Minister David Cameron's coalition government.
The economy -- which has been hit hard in recent times by government austerity measures and the eurozone debt crisis -- outperformed market expectations for more modest first-quarter expansion of 0.1 percent. The technical definition of a recession is two successive quarters of economic contraction.
"The odds favour the Bank of England continuing to hold off from more stimulus on Thursday," said IHS Global Insight economist Howard Archer.
"GDP growth of 0.3-percent quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter and an improved set of purchasing managers' surveys for April has eased pressure on the Bank of England for immediate further action to support the economy."
However, he cautioned that the committee could still decide to implement another tranche of QE cash, in line with recent calls by Mervyn King.
"It is by no means a nailed-on-certainty that the MPC will sit tight on Thursday, and it is far from inconceivable that they could go for a further £25 billion of QE."
Since the last BoE gathering, the British government has overhauled and extended its "funding for lending" scheme (FLS) in a bid to boost the flow of credit from banks to struggling small businesses, and thereby aid economic growth
The Bank of England and the Treasury last month revealed that the FLS will now make central bank funds available for an extra year, until January 2015.
"A resumption of quantitative easing (QE) looks unlikely this month," said Capital Economics analyst Vicky Redwood.
"The preliminary estimate of first-quarter GDP was better than expected and some MPC members will feel that they have done enough to support the economy by extending the Funding for Lending Scheme.
"Accordingly, Mervyn King looks unlikely to get his wish for more asset purchases fulfilled before he leaves at the end of June," she added.
Britain, though not a member of the eurozone, counts the single currency bloc as its main trading partner and has therefore been struck by fallout from the region's ongoing sovereign debt crisis.
Added to the picture, the European Central Bank last week trimmed its key interest rate to a record low level of 0.50 percent as it sought to boost the crisis-hit eurozone.
Also last week, the US Federal Reserve maintained its stimulative monetary policy stance. And this Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) cut rates to a record low.
"We are in era of global ultra-easy monetary policies which is unprecedented in the modern era," said VTB Capital economist Neil MacKinnon.
"However, tight fiscal policies designed to reduce government debt levels pulls in the opposite direction, as far as the impact of economic growth is concerned.
"In the UK, the economic outlook is still uncertain and requires a looser monetary policy," he added..
Source: The Economic Times
(5) India story on investment is just starting out: Chidambaram
With government liberalising FDI norms and setting up a system to speed up mega projects, finance minister P Chidambaram today said India story of investment is "just starting out". Addressing the First Business Session of ADB Annual Meeting in Greater Noida, he said many projects are
plagued by "last mile" bottlenecks in fuel supply, environment clearance, forest clearance, and land acquisition and a Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) has been set up to fast track the projects.
"We have permitted FDI in areas such as multi-brand retail, power exchanges, aviation and broadcasting," he said, adding "As I am fond of saying, India's story on investment is just starting out".
The CCI has cleared several mega major projects, including those in the oil and natural gas sectors, which were stuck due to various regulatory clearances.
Following liberalisation of the FDI policy in the aviation sector, Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia has joined hands with Tata Sons and Telestra Tradeplace to launch an airline in India.
Chidambaram, who is also chairman of the ADB Board of Governors, said the government is determined to accelerate the pace of inclusive growth, while maintaining macroeconomic stability.
"We are committed to fiscal consolidation. It will reverse the slippages that took place as a result of the stimulus packages (given in aftermath of global slowdown)," he said.
The finance minister said the fiscal deficit as a proportion of GDP would be brought down to 3 per cent by 2016-17.
"This we will achieved by a prudent combination of revenue enhancement as well as expenditure rationalisation," he said, adding India was determined to boost investment – both domestic as well as foreign.
Referring to India-ADB engagement, Chidambaram said he was pleased to note that ADB is now embarking on supporting initiatives in skills development.
Source: Hindustan Times
Disclaimer: All news stories and content sourced from freely available material on the internet. All sources are acknowledged.
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